Mixed-mode Millimeter-wave Transmitter

ABSTRACT

A radio frequency (RF) transmitter includes a set of input ports to receive baseband samples of a signal to be transmitted on a set of disjoint frequency bands, a set of filter banks, there is one filter bank for each input port, each filter bank includes a plurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to sample a shifted phase of the corresponding sequence of baseband samples and to interpolate the sampled phases to produce a plurality of sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples with the shifted phase, and a set of oscillators banks, each oscillator bank includes a plurality of polyphase Digital Direct Synthesizer (DDS) corresponding to the plurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to generate a plurality of sequences of samples of digital waveform. The RF transmitter includes a set of mixer banks to mix corresponding sequences of samples of digital waveform and interpolated baseband phased samples to up convert each sequence of interpolated baseband phased samples to the effective frequency, a parallel digital combiner to combine in-phase sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples of different frequency bands to produce a plurality of sequences of multiband upconverted samples, and a pulse encoder to modulate and encode the plurality of sequences of multiband upconverted samples to produce a plurality of encoded multi-band signals. The RF transmitter converts the plurality of encoded multi-band signals into a RF bitstream and radiate the RF bitstream as an analog signal.

CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims a priority to the U.S. non-provisionalpatent application Ser. No. 16/006,101, entitled “Multi-band radiofrequency transmitter” filed in the United State Patent and Trademarkoffice on Jul. 12, 2018.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates generally to a mixed-mode millimeter-wavetransmitter, and more specifically to a system for a mixed-modemillimeter-wave transmitter having a high speed digital signalsynthesizer.

BACKGROUND

Wireless communications are an important part of the modern informationinfrastructure. The last decade has been marked by the exponentialspread of handsets, such as smartphones, tablets, as well as newnetwork-dependent devices. The harsh requirements, in terms of highdata-rate communication links, have driven the successive generations ofstandards with higher throughput, mobility-support and increasedQuality-of-Service (QoS) and Quality-of-Experience (QoE). Nonetheless,all further progress must be done in a smooth and efficient mannerwithout entailing in increased Operational Expenditure (OPEX)/CapitalExpenditure (CAPEX) costs.

Increasingly, this implies that the radio resources must be efficientlyexploited, at the same time that higher data-rate wireless accesstechnologies must be developed. To meet the data-rate requirements in anefficient way, the first step involved the augment of the availablebandwidths in the 3G systems. Then, in an attempt to achieve scalablewider bandwidths, without spectrum allocation constraints, the conceptof CA was introduced in 4G systems, such as Long-Term Evolution(LTE)-Advanced.

By standardizing the contiguous and the non-contiguous CA capabilities,the combination of multiple frequency bands to conduct high-speed datatransmission was enabled. Due to the commercial success of LTE-Advancedfeatures, it is expected that they will continue to be evolved, as apart of 5G technologies. To accomplish the Radio Access Network (RAN)expectations in a compact and efficient way, there is a need for thedevelopment of flexible, agile and reconfigurable radio transceivers,with a native support for multiple bands and multiple standards. Theintegration of these features can provide an efficient answer to theestablishment of multiple, concurrent and frequency-agile data linksbetween all the RAN parties.

The concept of All-Digital Transmitter (ADT) has been targeted as apromising path towards the development of the next generation ofRadio-Frequency (RF) transceivers. The promising potential to designcompact and versatile wireless communication transceivers has attractedmuch and renewed attention. Some methods describe a fully digitaldatapath from Baseband (BB) up to the RF stage. This enables the designof low-complex and flexible transmitters. The underlying idea is thequantization of an m-bit digital signal into a 2-level representation,resulting in signals with constant envelope. After a digitalupconversion to the desired carrier frequency, the pulsed representationcan be amplified by highly-efficient and non-linear amplifiers, such asthe Switched-Mode Power Amplifiers (SMPAs). After the amplification, abandpass filter is required to reconstruct the signal before beingradiated by the antenna. Their fully digital behavior inherently leadsto agile, flexible, reconfigurable, multi-standard, and important forthis work, multi-band RF front-ends with minimal external front-end.

Nevertheless, despite the apparent ideal and native support for themultiband capability, design challenges associated with thenon-contiguous CA transmission have hampered the proposal of multi-bandsolutions. Multiband transmission can be achieved with integer multiplesof the modulators sampling frequencies, or with reduced sampling ratetopologies. Other methods employ bulky and inefficient power combinersto join different bands before transmission. Some of the difficulties indesigning multi-band transmission arise from the placement of theDigital Up-Conversion (DUC) after the pulse encoding. Following thisapproach, as the encoded signals have a considerable amount ofout-of-band noise distributed over the entire spectrum, the upconversionto the different bands typically leads to a degraded system performance.One methodology to achieve higher spans between bands is based on theutilization of replicas from different Nyquist Zoness (NZs). However,the inherent decrease in terms of Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR),associated with the need of maintaining an integer multiplicity in allthe involved sampling rates/frequencies lead to a reduced performance.In addition, the positioning the DUC before the pulse encoding typicallyimplies sampling rates of at least twice the carrier frequency. Thisimposes challenging requirements in both the Pulse Encoder and in theanalog front-end. Accordingly, there is a need for a digital transmittersuitable for contiguous and non-contiguous multi-band transmission.

In addition, as wireless communication frequency is moving towardshigher frequency, the transmitter hardware specification needs tosupport higher frequency operation, such as 28 GHz millimeter waverequired in 5G. In the past, millimeter wave transmitters have beendesigned primarily using All-Analog components. Therefore, there is aneed to implement a new transmitter that supports this high frequencyoperation with enhanced flexibility for instance operating frequencyre-configurability.

SUMMARY

It is an object of one embodiment to provide a parallel architecturethat enables the transmission of contiguous and non-contiguousmulti-band signals. It is an object of another embodiment to provide anarchitecture that can be implemented in a digital domain enabling adigital multi-band radio frequency (RF) transmitter. Such a transmittersometimes referred as all-digital transmitter (ADT).

The digital RF transmitters typically include digital up-converters(DUC) to up-convert a signal from a baseband frequency to a radiofrequency, and a pulse encoder to encode the signal for amplificationand transmission. Some embodiments are based on understanding ofadvantages of placing the pulse encoding before the DUC allowing thepulse encoder to operate with low and limited sampling rates. However,such an arrangement forces the pulse encoder to perform a highlynon-linear operation that generates non-bandlimited signals. Such anon-linearity makes the ADTs ill-suited to support concurrent multi-bandtransmission, because different upconversion stages force out-of-bandnoise to be merged with the intended transmission signals.

To that end, to enable the multi-band transmission, some embodiments aimto place the DUC before the pulse encoder. However, this arrangementraises challenges in the pulse encoder, due to the stringent samplingrates involved. Thus, there is a need for an architecture that enablesthe contiguous, and non-contiguous, multi-band transmission of RFsignals without unwanted increase of sampling rates in the pulseencoder.

Some embodiments are based on realization that parallel/polyphaseequivalent can be found for each subsystem of multi-band RF transmitterallowing multi-band parallelization and serialization of the transmittedsignal. Specifically, it is realized that multi-band signal can beparallelized in two dimensions, i.e., within each band and across thebands. In such a manner, the parallelization can be achieved not onlyfor the separate bands, but also for the combination of the bands. Dueto multi-band parallelization, the temporal continuity in every clocktick unrolls in the vertical line (inter-phase timing continuity). Thus,instead of just having one phase being clocked at a given sampling rate,which is higher than at least twice the required carrier frequency, insome embodiments, the maximum sampling rate of each phase is reduced ofa factor of M equal to a number of parallel processes for each band.

Accordingly, one embodiment discloses a radio frequency (RF) transmitterfor wireless communication. The RF transmitter includes a set of inputports to receive baseband samples of a signal to be transmitted on a setof disjoint frequency bands, each input port receives a sequence ofbaseband samples for transmission on a corresponding RF frequency band;a set of filter banks, there is one filter bank for each input port,each filter bank includes a plurality of digital polyphase interpolationfilters to sample a shifted phase of the corresponding sequence ofbaseband samples and to interpolate the sampled phases to produce aplurality of sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples with theshifted phase; a set of oscillators banks, there is one oscillator bankfor each filter bank, each oscillator bank includes a plurality ofpolyphase Digital Direct Synthesizer (DDS) corresponding to theplurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to generate aplurality of sequences of samples of digital waveform, there is onesequence of samples of digital waveform for each of the interpolatedbaseband phased samples, wherein the sequence of samples of digitalwaveform is phase synchronized with the corresponding interpolatedbaseband phased samples, wherein an effective frequency of the digitalwaveform equals a RF sampling rate divided by the number of theplurality of interpolated baseband phased samples; a set of mixer banks,there is one mixer bank for each filter bank, each mixer bank includes aplurality of parallel digital mixers to mix corresponding sequences ofsamples of digital waveform and interpolated baseband phased samples toup convert each sequence of interpolated baseband phased samples to theeffective frequency; a parallel digital combiner to combine in-phasesequences of interpolated baseband phased samples of different frequencybands to produce a plurality of sequences of multiband upconvertedsamples; a pulse encoder to modulate and encode the plurality ofsequences of multiband upconverted samples to produce a plurality ofencoded multi-band signals; a serializer to convert the plurality ofencoded multi-band signals into a RF bitstream; a power amplifier toamplify the RF bitstream; a multi-band RF filter to filter the amplifiedRF bitstream to produce an RF analog signal; and at least one antenna toradiate the RF analog signal.

Another embodiment discloses a method of radio frequency (RF)transmission for wireless communication. The method includes receivingbaseband samples of a signal to be transmitted on a set of disjointfrequency bands, each input port receives a sequence of baseband samplesfor transmission on a corresponding RF frequency band; sampling shiftedphases of the sequence of baseband samples for transmission on acorresponding RF frequency band with a plurality of digital polyphaseinterpolation filters and interpolating the sampled phases to produce aplurality of sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples with theshifted phase; generating a plurality of sequences of samples of digitalwaveform, there is one sequence of samples of digital waveform for eachof the interpolated baseband phased samples, wherein the sequence ofsamples of digital waveform is phase synchronized with the correspondinginterpolated baseband phased samples, wherein an effective frequency ofthe digital waveform equals a RF sampling rate divided by the number ofthe plurality of interpolated baseband phased samples; mixingcorresponding sequences of samples of digital waveform and interpolatedbaseband phased samples to up convert each sequence of interpolatedbaseband phased samples to the effective frequency; combining in-phasesequences of interpolated baseband phased samples of different frequencybands to produce a plurality of sequences of multiband upconvertedsamples; modulating and encoding the plurality of sequences of multibandupconverted samples to produce a plurality of encoded multi-bandsignals; converting the plurality of encoded multi-band signals into aRF bitstream; amplifying the RF bitstream; filtering the amplified RFbitstream to produce an RF analog signal; and radiating the RF analogsignal.

Yet, another embodiment is based on recognition that All-digitaltransmitter solution is ultimately limited by the digital processorclock rate, which is even-though keep improving, but still far from therequirement of clock rate needed for millimeter wave frequency.Otherwise, high-cost expensive high speed digital processor such as FPGAshould be used to enable the increase of higher frequency. A mixed-modetransmitter supporting high frequency millimeter wave signaltransmission is a cost-effective solution with the ability to operate athigh frequency (determined by the millimeter wave analog signal source).

Yet further, a mixed-mode transmitter may include a set of input portsto receive baseband samples of a signal to be transmitted on a set ofdisjoint frequency bands, each input port receives a sequence ofbaseband samples for transmission on a corresponding RF frequency band;a set of filter banks, there is one filter bank for each input port,each filter bank includes a plurality of digital polyphase interpolationfilters to sample a shifted phase of the corresponding sequence ofbaseband samples and to interpolate the sampled phases to produce aplurality of sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples with theshifted phase; a set of oscillators banks, there is one oscillator bankfor each filter bank, each oscillator bank includes a plurality ofpolyphase Digital Direct Synthesizer (DDS) corresponding to theplurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to generate aplurality of sequences of samples of digital waveform, there is onesequence of samples of digital waveform for each of the interpolatedbaseband phased samples, wherein the sequence of samples of digitalwaveform is phase synchronized with the corresponding interpolatedbaseband phased samples, wherein an effective frequency of the digitalwaveform equals a RF sampling rate divided by the number of theplurality of interpolated baseband phased samples; a set of mixer banks,there is one mixer bank for each filter bank, each mixer bank includes aplurality of parallel digital mixers to mix corresponding sequences ofsamples of digital waveform and interpolated baseband phased samples toup convert each sequence of interpolated baseband phased samples to theeffective frequency; a parallel digital combiner to combine in-phasesequences of interpolated baseband phased samples of different frequencybands to produce a plurality of sequences of multiband upconvertedsamples; a pulse encoder to modulate and encode the plurality ofsequences of multiband upconverted samples to produce a plurality ofencoded multi-band signals; a serializer to convert the plurality ofencoded multi-band signals into a RF bitstream; an analog mixer toupconvert the RF bitststream to a higher frequency signal pulse trainsignal using an analog signal source; a power amplifier to amplify theRF bitstream; a multi-band RF filter to filter the upconverted RFbitstream to produce an RF analog signal; and at least one antenna toradiate the RF analog signal.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A shows a schematic illustrating some principles employed bydifferent embodiments.

FIG. 1B shows a schematic illustrating a mixed-mode employed bydifferent embodiments.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a RF transmitter for wirelesscommunication according to some embodiments.

FIGS. 3A and 3B show schematic of principles employed by a digitalpolyphase interpolation filter according to some embodiments.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic of an oscillator bank corresponding to a filterbank according to some embodiments.

FIG. 5 shows a schematic of digital upconversion stage used by thetransistors of some embodiments.

FIG. 6 shows a schematic of an exemplar combiner for combining signalsof three bands according to some embodiments.

FIG. 7A shows a schematic illustrating PWM concept used by oneembodiment for pulse encoding.

FIG. 7B shows a schematic of a delta-sigma modulator used by oneembodiment for pulse encoding.

FIG. 7C shows a schematic of a delta-sigma modulator used by oneembodiment for pulse encoding.

FIG. 7D shows a schematic of a Corner Bender Matrix Transposer accordingto one embodiment.

FIG. 8 shows a schematic of a serializer used by one embodiment toserialize the encoded signals.

FIG. 9 shows an exemplar setup used to test one of the embodiments.

FIG. 10 shows an exemplary flowchart of signal transmission according toone embodiment, which is scalable to N bands.

FIG. 11A shows a schematic of a spectrum of a concurrent non-contiguousmulti-band transmitter according to some embodiments.

FIG. 11B shows a schematic of a spectrum of a concurrent non-contiguousmulti-band transmitter according to some embodiment with mix-modetransmitter.

FIG. 12 shows a schematic of a spectrum measured from a transmitter ofsome embodiments embedded with a serializer frequency of 4 Gbps.

FIG. 13 shows a schematic of a multi-level digital transmitterarchitecture according to one embodiment.

FIG. 14A shows a schematic of an application of multi-bit ADT usingH-bridge SMPA as an amplifier stage according to some embodiments.

FIG. 14B shows a table providing a mapping relationship of 8 MGT(0˜7) torepresent 7-levels of RFin according to one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

FIG. 1 shows a schematic illustrating some principles employed bydifferent embodiments. For example, radio frequency (RF) all-digitaltransmitter (ADT) system 100 receives baseband samples 105 havinginphase (I) and quadrature (Q) components from a baseband interface 101and then digitally up-converts the samples 105 with digital up-stageconverter 110 to RF frequency bands. For example, the up-stageconversion 110 can be performed by multiplication of the basebandsamples and RF frequency signals. The upconverted signal 115 is thenencoded by a pulse-encoder 120 using, e.g., pulse width modulation,delta-sigma modulation, and/or hybrid modulation to generate encodedsignals 125, also referred as pulse train signals 125. In someimplementations, the pulse train signals 125 are 2-level signal waveform(1-bit) or multi-level waveform depending on the type of pulse encoder120. The encoded signal 125 is amplified by a power amplifier 130, whichis preferred to operate in a switched-mode (only ON/OFF status) toachieve high efficiency. Filter 140 is a bandpass filter to filter outthe outband emission of amplifier 130 output signal 135 before emittedby antenna 145 to the open space. The outband emission in the encodedsignal is mainly introduced by the pulse encoder 120 and furtherdistorted by amplifier 130. To that end, the outband emission should bekept as low as possible to reduce interference with neighbor frequencyuser. For example, for the signal 125, multi-level signal normally haslower emission than 2-level signal.

Such an architecture provides better performance in terms of carrierfrequency agility. However, this architecture also leads to stringentrequirements in the design of the pulse encoder being clocked at leastat twice the RF carrier frequency. To that end, some embodiments providemulti-band parallelization and serialization 200 of the transmittedsignal to reduce the complexity of operation of the pulse encoder 130.Specifically, it is realized that multi-band signal can be parallelizedin two dimensions, i.e., within each band and across the bands. In sucha manner, the parallelization can be achieved not only for the separatebands, but also for the combination of the bands. Due to multi-bandparallelization, the temporal continuity in every clock tick unrolls inthe vertical line (inter-phase timing continuity). Thus, instead of justhaving one phase being clocked at a given sampling rate, which is higherthan at least twice the required carrier frequency, in some embodiments,the maximum sampling rate of each phase is reduced of a factor of Mequal to a number of parallel processes for each band.

FIG. 1B shows a block diagram of mixed mode transmitter to supporthigher frequency operation, in comparison with ADT case whose highestoperating frequency is proportional, to the digital clock rate (inpractice, it is still quite limited to implemented ADT higher than 6GHz, which is required by 5G for millimeter wave operation). Therefore,in the mixed mode transmitter, an analog signal source 146 generatingsinusoidal signal at fc frequency, which is widely available in practiceis introduced. Output pulse train signal is then upconverted by analogmixer 126 to a higher frequency signal pulse train signal 127, which isthen input to a high frequency amplifier 130, as described in FIG. 1A.In this case, one can avoid the digital clock rate limitation, and relyon fc to upconvert the digital signal generated by pulse encoder 120 tomuch higher frequency range.

This architecture can be applied to 3GPP Base station like eNode B andUser Equipment as multi-band transmitter. For the User Equipment (likesmartphone, IoT Device), this architecture can support variouscombination of wireless communication transmitter. Typical case is tosupport (1) several 3GPP generation like 2G, 3G, LTE and 5G, (2)Multiple 3GPP generation and Wi-Fi, and (3) 3GPP Carrier Aggregation. Sothe combination of transmission is flexible because of digitaltransmission. It is called mixed-mode due to the reason than its signalgeneration involves both Digital (left part) as well as Analog (rightpart) domains. Therefore, it has the advantages (flexibility and higherfrequency operability) from both domains, respectively.

FIG. 2 shows a block diagram of a RF transmitter 201 for wirelesscommunication according to some embodiments. The RF transmitter includesa set of input ports of baseband interface 401 to receive basebandsamples 400 to be transmitted on a set of joint and/or disjointfrequency bands. The baseband samples are discretization of the basebandsignal into the digital domain.

In some embodiments, each input port receives a sequence of basebandsamples for transmission on a corresponding RF frequency band. Forexample, the input port 401 receives samples 400 for one frequency band,and an input port 401 a receives samples 400 a for another frequencyband, which can be disjoint from the frequency band of samples 400.Multiple input ports for samples of multiple frequency bands provide afirst dimension of two-dimensional parallelization.

To enable a second dimension of the two dimensional parallelization, theRF transmitter includes a set of filter banks, such that there is onefilter bank 405 for each input port, i.e., one filter bank for eachfrequency band. Each filter bank includes a plurality of digitalpolyphase interpolation filters to sample a rotatably shifted phase ofthe corresponding sequence of baseband samples and to interpolate thesampled phases to produce a plurality of sequences of interpolatedbaseband phased samples with the rotatably shifted phase.

Each digital polyphase interpolation filter includes a polyphaser filtercombined in series with an interpolator. Polyphase is a way of doingsampling-rate conversion. The polyphaser filter is a structure thatallows using filters in multirate setting and to perform thesampling-rate conversion in the multirate setting. In such a manner, aset of filter banks 405 interpolate each one of the baseband sample 400representing the disjoint frequency bands. At the same time that thesamples are interpolated, they are distributed over M phases 410, whilealso ensuring a temporal continuity between phases, in every clock tick.The phases in 410 represent both the In-phase/Quadrature (I/Q) samples.

Following the principles of two-dimensional parallelization, the RFtransmitter includes a set of oscillator banks 415, such that there isone oscillator bank 415 for each filter bank 405. Each oscillator bankincludes a plurality of polyphase Digital Direct Synthesizer (DDS)corresponding to the plurality of digital polyphase interpolationfilters to generate a plurality of sequences of samples of digitalwaveform 420. There is one sequence of samples of digital waveform foreach of the interpolated baseband phased samples. For example, if thefilter 405 generates M interpolated baseband phased samples, theoscillator bank generates M digital waveforms. The sequence of samplesof digital waveform is phase synchronized with the correspondinginterpolated baseband phased samples. By the way of construction, aneffective frequency of the digital waveform equals a RF sampling ratedivided by the number, M, of the plurality of interpolated basebandphased samples.

Multiple digital waveforms for each frequency band allows up-conversionof the multi-band signals 410, while preserving two-dimensionalparallelization. To that end, the RF transmitter includes a set of mixerbanks 425, such that there is one mixer bank for each filter bank. Eachmixer bank includes a plurality of parallel digital mixers to mixcorresponding sequences of samples of digital waveform 420 andinterpolated baseband phased samples 410 to up convert each sequence ofinterpolated baseband phased samples to the signals 430 of the effectivefrequency.

The RF transmitter includes a parallel digital combiner 435 to combinein-phase sequences of interpolated baseband phased samples of differentfrequency bands to produce a plurality of sequences of multibandupconverted samples 440, includes a multiband pulse encoder 445 tomodulate and encode the plurality of sequences of multiband upconvertedsamples 440 to produce a plurality of encoded multiband signals 450, andincludes a serializer 455 to convert the plurality of encoded multi-bandsignals into a RF bitstream 460.

The combiner 435 combines in-phase samples of different frequency bands,thereby reducing two-dimensional parallelization into a one-dimensionalparallelization. For example, because the samples are in phase, butbelong to a different frequency bands, the combination of the samples insome embodiments is a mathematical summation. Such a dimensionalityreduction allows using pulse encoder 445 suitable for single bandencoding at the effective frequency, which simplifies the implementationof the pulse encoder.

In addition, the RF transmitter includes a power amplifier, such as anamplifier 130 to amplify the RF bitstream, a multiband RF filter, suchas a filter 140, to filter the amplified RF bitstream to produce an RFanalog signal, and at least one antenna 145 to radiate the RF analogsignal.

FIGS. 3A and 3B show schematic of principles employed by a digitalpolyphase interpolation filter according to some embodiments. The inputsamples, e.g., samples 400 a, goes into each subfilter h[n], e.g., 210,220, and 230, running at a slow rate. As can be seen in FIG. 3A, becauseeach sample correspond to a phase of the transmitted signal, eachsubfilter samples shifted phase of the signal represented by the samples400 a. The filtered samples are interpolated after filtering, as shownin FIG. 3B. For example, the output 225 that comes from alternating 240between the outputs of the subfilters 210, 220, and 230 is interpolatedwith the values 230 of the interpolated signal. The interpolationdepends on the type of the signal represented by the samples 400 and 400a and the interpolation estimates the value of that signal for anintermediate value of the samples outputted by the subfilters. Forexample, the interpolation can be sinusoidal, polynomial, and/or splineinterpolation.

The polyphaser interpolation increases the sampling rate of basebandsample rate FsBB to RF sample rate FsRF, dividing the sample in Mdifferent phases. Polyphase filter is an architecture of doing samplerate conversion that leads to very efficient implementations. Theresulting discrete time signal has a sample rate M times the originalsampling rate, with each path is running at a low rate but output signalhas high rate due to polyphaser architecture. Computational savingachieved by filtering at lower sampling rate.

FIG. 4 shows a schematic of an oscillator bank corresponding to a filterbank according to some embodiments. Specifically, there is oneoscillator bank for each polyphaser interpolation filter bank of 405,such that N(#number of RF carrier frequency) copies of Polyphase DigitalDirect Synthesis (DDS) 415 operates to generate the cosine 250 and sine255 samples from the desired RF frequency bands 420. Here again, thesamples are distributed over M phases between the different phases, forevery clock tick. There is one sequences of samples of digital waveform420 for each of the interpolated baseband phased samples 410.

Some embodiments are based on recognition that a single-rate DDS isdifficult to be used in this particular case, because it is difficult toachieve a sampling rate equal to the serializer's sampling frequency(FsRF) due to hardware speed limit. To overcome this problem, someembodiments use a polyphaser to achieve equivalent sampling rate of thesingle-rate DDS. Since the DDS is a feedforward system, polyphasetechniques do not significantly impact the critical path. In itsessence, polyphase combines M single-rate DDS modules. Each DDS has aspecific phase accumulator and two read-only memories containing thesine and the cosine waveforms. The DDS modules work in parallel tosimultaneously generate M samples of the required RF carrier frequency(ωc) waveform. Each of the DDS is actually working at a rate M timeslower than the equivalent global sampling rate. Thus, it is possible toachieve a global sampling rate equal to the serializer's samplingfrequency FsRF with M different phases being clocked at FsBB.

In some implementations, the phase computation block 416 performs themapping between the desired carrier frequency, the phase step, and therespective DDS phase offset. The minimum frequency resolution (

f) is computed as in the classical single-rate DDS, but now with asampling rate N times higher

$\begin{matrix}{{\Delta \; f} = {\frac{F_{SBB}M}{2^{L}} = \frac{F_{SRF}}{2^{L}}}} & (1)\end{matrix}$

where L is the number of bits from each phase accumulator 417.

FIG. 5 shows a schematic of digital upconversion stage used by thetransistors of some embodiments. Interpolated baseband samples 410 realpart and imaginary part Re[X_(INT)(n)] and Im[X_(INT)(n)] is multipliedwith 420 cosine and sine of RF frequency samples at carrier frequency(ωc), and then subtracted. The subtraction is then 430 the RF samplesX_(RF(n)). It is duplicated for each RF carrier frequency bands.

Equation (2) explains the architecture of operation of the DUC (digitalupconversion stage).

$\begin{matrix}\begin{matrix}{{x_{RF}(n)} = {{Re}\left\lbrack {{x_{INT}(n)}e^{j\; \omega_{c}n}} \right\rbrack}} \\{= {{{{Re}\left\lbrack {x_{INT}(n)} \right\rbrack}{\cos \left( {\omega_{c}n} \right)}} - {{{Im}\left\lbrack {x_{INT}(n)} \right\rbrack}{{\sin \left( {\omega_{c}n} \right)}.}}}}\end{matrix} & (2)\end{matrix}$

A parallel DUC comprising 2N multipliers and N subtracters 425, performthe element-wise operation between the M phases from the I-component andthe Q-component of 410, the M phases from the sine and cosine waveformsof 420, as given in Eq. (2). This operation is formally equivalent to adigital upconversion from DC to the desired RF carrier frequency. Theseoperations are performed in parallel for all the N bands of RF carrierfrequency.

FIG. 6 shows a schematic of an exemplar combiner 435 for combiningsignals 430 of N=3 bands according to some embodiments. The embodimentsmake use of parallel/polyphaser architecture of each single band andcombine each band's polyphased samples first then applying onemulti-band pulse encoding onto these combined samples, which enables thenoise shaping to occur effective for multi-band transmission. These arethe unique challenges compared with single band case.

All M-phased samples of each band of N is in-phased combined bymathematically adder 620 of the parallel digital combiner 435. Theresultant signals 440 have the information from all RF bands of N.

Different embodiments use different methods to perform the pulseencoding. For instance, different embodiments perform the pulse encodingusing Delta-Sigma Modulation, Pulse-Width Modulation, Pulse-PositionModulation, or some combination thereof. Different embodiments extenddifferent method with the design techniques to ensure that theparallelization can be done in order to achieve a required globalsampling rate.

FIG. 7A shows a schematic illustrating PWM Concept used by oneembodiment for pulse encoding. This embodiment use pulse widthmodulation based on comparison 730 between two in-bit signals: thedesired signal x(n) 720 and a reference waveform r (n) 710 with auniform amplitude distribution, to generate the output signal y(n) 740.

FIG. 7B shows a schematic illustrating DSM (delta-sigma modulator)concept used by one embodiment for pulse encoding. This embodiment isbased on oversampling and quantization a time varying signal x(n) 760and encode it to a bi-level or multi-level quantized signal y(n) 770. Afeedback signal contains the quantized signal subtracted from inputsignal 760. 780 represents the quantization error e(n). 790 is thesignal transfer function. Equ (3)

Y(z)=z ⁻¹ X(z)+(1−z ⁻¹)E(z)   (3)

Explains the transfer function of DSM. The STF (signal transferfunction) is Z⁻¹, and NTF (noise transfer function) is (1−Z⁻¹). Thequantization noise is filtered and pushed away from signal, leading toan enhanced signal to noise ratio. There is also various implementationof DSM in practice, depending on the order of transfer functions.

FIG. 7C shows a schematic of a delta-sigma modulator 750 used by oneembodiment for pulse encoding. In this embodiment, the pulse encoder isimplemented as a parallel representation of delta-sigma modulator toencode the combined signal. This embodiment is based on understandingthat to enable flexible RF carrier frequencies generation, Delta-sigmamodulation is more preferred method to perform pulse encoding, due tothe nature of its quantization noise shaping features and oversampling,which minimize the outband emission, a s explained above

When Delta-sigma modulation 445 is selected, in addition to theparallelization of M delta-sigma modulators (multi-core delta sigmamodulator 448), some implementations use extra modules, i.e.,Deinterleaving 446 and Interleaving Modules 447. Deinterleaving 446 andInterleaving Modules 447 modules are often need to be optimized toaccommodate the hardware resource challenges in practicalimplementation. The Deinterleaving 446 and Interleaving Modules 447modules are configured to accommodate and re-arrange the input/outputdata. The aim is to ensure that the feedback loop from each Delta-sigmamodulator is processing contiguous samples of the input signal. Forexample, techniques such as Corner Bender Matrix Transposer can beapplied to reduce the amount of samples that must be temporarily storedin the blocks of 446 and 447. This technique as shown in FIG. 7C showsthe transposer of Input and Output N independent slice (of size K). Thedesign doesn't use FIFOs (first in first out), and it is fullysynchronous, and only uses fixed size shift register delays. The samemodule is used for both 446 and 447. The inclusion of this moduleenabled a drastic reduction of Block Random-Access Memory (BRAM)resource usage. The number of K-size slices corresponds to the number ofparallel phases (M).

FIG. 8 shows a schematic of a serializer 455 used by one embodiment toserialize the encoded signals 450 from parallel pulse encoder 445. Thisexemplar serializer is configured to convert low speed parallel signals(1.25 Gbps) 810 to a high speed series signals (5 Gbps) 820 byinterleaving the bits. The output transmit clock rate is multiple ofparallel clock of input signals. The modern FPGA platform offers theultra-high speed serializer module (>10 Gbps), on the basis of which thecurrent embodiment is able to offer the flexibility of RF carrierfrequency generation frequency range. The upper frequency range isusually half of the serializer maximum clock rate.

The serializer of FIG. 8 is designed for two outputs levels of theencoded signal. However, different embodiments used serializers designedfor multi-bit buses. For example, one embodiment replaces the high-speedserializer by a plurality of high-speed serializers, that when combined,enable the representation of multi-bit signals.

FIG. 9 shows an exemplar setup 200 used to test the implemented ADT forone of the embodiments. An external clock generator 901 provides clockfor FPGA (field programmable gate array) 902 in differential form (CLKDIFF). The FPGA 902 is the platform to implement the ADT algorithms, andusually MGT (multi-gigabit transceiver) interface of 902 is used togenerate high speed encoded RF bitstream 125, followed by RF amplifier130 and filter 140. VSA (Vector signal analyzer) 903 is the equipmentused to measure the frequency domain of 125 RF bitstream. The host PC904 is used for control and communication with FPGA via USB (UniversalSerial Bus) and measurement with VSA 903 through Ethernet (ETH).Typically, reference signal for instance 10 MHz is also provided by 901to 903 for synchronization. Test setup 900 verifies the feasibility ofRF-ADT according to various embodiments.

FIG. 10 shows an exemplary flowchart of signal transmission according toone embodiment, which is scalable to N bands. The multiple basebandbands 300, representing a plurality of disjoint frequency bands, can beindividually interpolated (by module 305) and upconverted (by module315) to the given carrier frequency, leading to the signals 320.However, to alleviate the timing requirements, the samples aredistributed over M phases in 320. Afterwards, the M phases correspondingto each baseband band are added in a Parallel Digital Combiner 325,while maintaining the same number of phases. Then, a parallel-version ofa Pulse Encoder 335 operates the M phases of 330, generating anequivalent with a lower number of output levels 340. This output is alsodivided over M phases, that will then be serialized by a high-speedserializer 350. The typical number of outputs levels is two. However,the embodiment is valid for multi-level buses. In the latter case, thehigh-speed serializer can be replaced by a plurality of high-speedserializers, that when combined, enable the representation ofmulti-level signals.

FIG. 11A shows a schematic of a spectrum of a concurrent non-contiguousmulti-band transmitter according to some embodiments. This case reportsa dual-band scenario where two bands 1100 are transmitted. Thedistortion and quantization noise from the Pulse Encoder 1110 arefiltered by the bandpass filter before radiation to minimizeinterference issues.

FIG. 11A shows a schematic of a spectrum of a mixed mode millimeter wavetransmitter spectrum with concurrent non-contiguous multi-bandtransmitter according to some embodiments. This case reports a dual-bandscenario where two bands 1100 are transmitted. The distortion andquantization noise from the Pulse Encoder 1110 are filtered by thebandpass filter before radiation to minimize interference issues. Fc isthe analog signal source generator 146 as described in FIG. 1B.

FIG. 12 shows a schematic of a spectrum measured from a transmitter ofsome embodiments embedded with a serializer frequency of 4 Gbps. Thetriple bands have 16-Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) modulatedsignals with 18.75 MHz of bandwidth. The implementation is embedded intoa Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) with a serializer running at 4Gbps. All the logic subsystems are being clocked at 62.5 MHz. Notably,for achieving the same spectrum, the single-rate architectures shouldhave all the subsystems being clocked at least at 4 GHz.

Some embodiments are based on understanding that the spectrumperformance of all-digital transmitter for multi-level output issuperior than 2-level case, due to improved quantization levels. Toenhance the system performance (assessed in terms of Adjacent-ChannelPower Ratio (ACPR), Error-Vector Magnitude (EVM) and SNR), a final stagethat performs an extension to a multilevel output is introduced. Thesynthesis of this multi-level output is based on the combination ofpulsed trains.

FIG. 13 shows a schematic of a multi-level digital transmitterarchitecture according to one embodiment. The output 1301 has severalhigh speed interface, for example MGT (multi-gigabit transceiver)interfaces available in FPGA platform, which enables the high speedreadout of bitstreams. Each multi-gigabit transceiver interface isgenerating a two-level RF bitstream. A schematic 1303 shows the systemblock diagram similar to the diagram of a transistor 201. In this case,however, the pulse encoder uses a delta-sigma modulator 1304 withmulti-level amplitudes. To that end, the transmitter includes a mapper1302 to control the operating of each transceiver of 1301.

FIG. 14A shows a schematic of an application of multi-bit ADT usingH-bridge SMPA as an amplifier stage according to some embodiments. Forexample, seven different Multi-Gigabit Transceivers (MGTs) are usedinstead of just one MGT for single-bit of 2 level, and the Look-Up TableMapper 1402 is included before the MGTs. This Look-Up Table Mapperconverts a multi-level input signal into a combination of sevendifferent pulsed train sequences. The mapper is designed according tothe used analog combination network. For instance, Dual-H-bridge SMPA1410 is used both as amplification and combining function. The combinedRF out after bandpass filter is connected to antenna to transmit signalsat multi RF bands.

FIG. 14B shows a table providing a mapping relationship of 8 MGT(0˜7) torepresent 7-levels of RFin according to one embodiment. In thisembodiment, 1 or 0 in the table indicates the operation conditions of 8transistors of 1401, being ON or OFF. For instance, a 3-level output(dark gray background), a 5-level output (dark gray and light graybackground), or a 7-level output (by using all the table elements).

According to embodiments described above, other advantages can beprovided for 5G using phased array, where RF signals radiated byantennas is formed in a beam. This will help to focus the energy in thedesired directions towards targeted mobile user terminals in certaindirections, instead of in a quite wide sector area in the previousgeneration of wireless commination such as 3G and 4G. Beamforming helpsto overcome the high signal path loss at high frequency with introducedantenna directivity, and can also benefit to the interferenceminimization with controllable beam steering angles.

In addition, as in the digital beamforming phased array applications,the beamforming algorithm can be implemented in the digital baseband bymathematically control the baseband signal's weighting factor as well asphase-delays (equivalent to time-delay).

It should be noted that the embodiments discussed above can be appliedto 3GPP Base station like eNode B and User Equipment as multi-bandtransmitter. For the User Equipment (like smartphone, IoT Device), thisarchitecture can support various combination of wireless communicationtransmitter. Typical case is to support (1) several 3GPP generation like2G, 3G, LTE and 5G, (2) Multiple 3GPP generation and Wi-Fi, and (3) 3GPPCarrier Aggregation. So the combination of transmission is flexiblebecause of digital transmission.

The above-described embodiments of the present disclosure can beimplemented in any of numerous ways. For example, the embodiments may beimplemented using hardware, software or a combination thereof. Use ofordinal terms such as “first,” “second,” in the claims to modify a claimelement does not by itself connote any priority, precedence, or order ofone claim element over another or the temporal order in which acts of amethod are performed, but are used merely as labels to distinguish oneclaim element having a certain name from another element having a samename (but for use of the ordinal term) to distinguish the claimelements.

Also, the embodiments of the present disclosure may be embodied as amethod, of which an example has been provided. The acts performed aspart of the method may be ordered in any suitable way. Accordingly,embodiments may be constructed in which acts are performed in an orderdifferent than illustrated, which may include performing some actssimultaneously, even though shown as sequential acts in illustrativeembodiments.

Although the present disclosure has been described by way of examples ofpreferred embodiments, it is to be understood that various otheradaptations and modifications can be made within the spirit and scope ofthe present disclosure. Therefore, it is the object of the appendedclaims to cover all such variations and modifications as come within thetrue spirit and scope of the present disclosure.

We claim:
 1. A mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter comprising: a setof input ports to receive baseband samples of a signal to be transmittedon a set of disjoint frequency bands, each input port receives asequence of baseband samples for transmission on a corresponding RFfrequency band; a set of filter banks, there is one filter bank for eachinput port, each filter bank includes a plurality of digital polyphaseinterpolation filters to sample a shifted phase of the correspondingsequence of baseband samples and to interpolate the sampled phases toproduce a plurality of sequences of interpolated baseband phased sampleswith the shifted phase; a set of oscillators banks, there is oneoscillator bank for each filter bank, each oscillator bank includes aplurality of polyphase Digital Direct Synthesizer (DDS) corresponding tothe plurality of digital polyphase interpolation filters to generate aplurality of sequences of samples of digital waveform, there is onesequence of samples of digital waveform for each of the interpolatedbaseband phased samples, wherein the sequence of samples of digitalwaveform is phase synchronized with the corresponding interpolatedbaseband phased samples, wherein an effective frequency of the digitalwaveform equals a RF sampling rate divided by the number of theplurality of interpolated baseband phased samples; a set of mixer banks,there is one mixer bank for each filter bank, each mixer bank includes aplurality of parallel digital mixers to mix corresponding sequences ofsamples of digital waveform and interpolated baseband phased samples toup convert each sequence of interpolated baseband phased samples to theeffective frequency; a parallel digital combiner to combine in-phasesequences of interpolated baseband phased samples of different frequencybands to produce a plurality of sequences of multi band upconvertedsamples; a pulse encoder to modulate and encode the plurality ofsequences of multiband upconverted samples to produce a plurality ofencoded multi-band signals; a serializer to convert the plurality ofencoded multi-band signals into a RF bitstream; an analog mixer toupconvert the RF bitststream to a higher frequency signal pulse trainsignal using an analog signal source; a power amplifier to amplify theRF bitstream; a multi-band RF filter to Filter the upconverted RFbitstream to produce an RF analog signal; and at least one antenna toradiate the RF analog signal.
 2. The mixed-mode millimeter-wavetransmitter of claim 1, wherein each digital polyphase interpolationfilter includes a polyphaser filter combined in scries with aninterpolator.
 3. The mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter of claim 1,wherein the pulse encoder is a multi-band pulse-width modulator.
 4. Themixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter of claim 1, wherein the pulseencoder is a delta-sigma modulator.
 5. The mixed-mode millimeter-wavetransmitter of claim 1, wherein the pulse encoder outputs a two-levelencoded signal.
 6. The mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter of claim1, wherein the pulse encoder outputs a multi-level encoded signal, witha number of levels greater than two.
 7. The mixed-mode millimeter-wavetransmitter of claim 1, wherein the RF transmitter performs atwo-dimensional parallelization of the signal across the multiplefrequency bands and with each frequency band.
 8. The mixed-modemillimeter-wave transmitter of claim 1, wherein polyphase Digital DirectSynthesizer generates cosine and sine samples distributed over M phasesfor every clock tick.
 9. A mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmittercomprising: a set of input ports to receive baseband samples of a signalto be transmitted on a set of disjoint frequency bands, each input portreceives a sequence of baseband samples for transmission on acorresponding RF frequency band; a set of filter banks, there is onefilter bank for each input port, each filter bank includes a pluralityof digital polyphase interpolation filters to sample a shifted phase ofthe corresponding sequence of baseband samples and to interpolate thesampled phases to produce a plurality of sequences of interpolatedbaseband phased samples with the shifted phase; a set of oscillatorsbanks, there is one oscillator bank for each filter bank, eachoscillator bank includes a plurality of polyphase Digital DirectSynthesizer (DDS) corresponding to the plurality of digital polyphaseinterpolation filters to generate a plurality of sequences of samples ofdigital waveform, there is one sequence of samples of digital waveformfor each of the interpolated baseband phased samples, wherein thesequence of samples of digital waveform is phase synchronized with thecorresponding interpolated baseband phased samples, wherein an effectivefrequency of the digital waveform equals a RF sampling rate divided bythe number of the plurality of interpolated baseband phased samples; aset of mixer banks, there is one mixer bank for each filter bank, eachmixer bank includes a plurality of parallel digital mixers to mixcorresponding sequences of samples of digital waveform and interpolatedbaseband phased samples to up convert each sequence of interpolatedbaseband phased samples to the effective frequency; a parallel digitalcombiner to combine in-phase sequences of interpolated baseband phasedsamples of different frequency bands to produce a plurality of sequencesof multiband upconverted samples; a pulse encoder to modulate and encodethe plurality of sequences of multiband upconverted samples to produce aplurality of encoded multi-band signals; a serializer to convert theplurality of encoded multi-band signals into a RF bitstream; an analogmixer to upconvert the RF bitststream to a higher frequency signal pulsetrain signal using an analog signal source; a power amplifier to amplifythe RF bitstream; a multi-band RF filter to filter the upconverted RFbitstream to produce an RF analog signal; and at least one antenna toradiate the RF analog signal, wherein the analog mixer is arrangedbetween the serializer and the power amplifier.
 10. The mixed-modemillimeter-wave transmitter of claim 9, wherein the at least twoantennas are configured to as a phased array antenna.
 11. The mixed-modemillimeter-wave transmitter of claim 9, wherein each digital polyphaseinterpolation filter includes a polyphaser filter combined in serieswith an interpolator.
 12. The mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter ofclaim 9, wherein the pulse encoder is a multi-band pulse-widthmodulator.
 13. The mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter of claim 9,wherein the pulse encoder is a delta-sigma modulator.
 14. The mixed-modemillimeter-wave transmitter of claim 9, wherein the pulse encoderoutputs a two-level encoded signal.
 15. The mixed-mode millimeter-wavetransmitter of claim 9, wherein the pulse encoder outputs a multi-levelencoded signal, with a number of levels greater than two.
 16. Themixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter of claim 9, wherein the RFtransmitter performs a two-dimensional parallelization of the signalacross the multiple frequency bands and with each frequency band. 17.The mixed-mode millimeter-wave transmitter of claim 9, wherein polyphaseDigital Direct Synthesizer generates cosine and sine samples distributedover M phases for every clock tick.